University of Virginia Library

XV. PSALMS XXX. X.

My life is spent with griefe, and my yeares with sighing.

What sullen Starre rul'd my untimely birth,
That would not lend my dayes one houre of mirth!
How oft have these bare knees been bent, to gaine
The slender Almes of one poore smile, in vaine!
How often, tir'd with the fastidious light,
Have my faint lips implor'd the shades of night?
How often have my nightly Torments praid
For lingring twilight, glutted with the shade!
Day, worse than night; night, worse than day, appeares;
In feares I spend my nights; my dayes; in teares:
I moane, unpitti'd; groane without reliefe,
There is nor end, nor measure of my griefe;
The smiling flow'r salutes the day; it growes
Untouch'd with care; It neither spins, nor sowes;
O that my tedious life were, like this flow'r,
Or freed from griefe; or finish'd with an houre:
Why was I borne? Why was I borne a man?
And why proportion'd by so large a Span?
Or why suspended from the common lot,
And being borne to die, why die I not?
Ah me! why is my sorrow-wasted breath
Deny'd the easie priviledge of death?
The branded Slave, that tugs the weary Oare,
Obtaines the Sabbath of a welcome Shore;
His ransom'd stripes are heal'd; His native soile
Sweetens the mem'ry of his forreigne toyle:
But ah! my sorrowes are not halfe so blest;
My labour finds no point; my paines, no rest:
I barter sighs for teares; and teares for Grones,
Still vainly rolling Sysiphaean stones:
Thou just Observer of our flying houres,
That, with thy Adamantine fangs, devoures
The brazen Monuments of renowned Kings,
Does thy glasse stand? Or be thy moulting wings
Unapt to flie? If not, why dost thou spare
A willing brest; a brest, that stands so faire?
A dying brest, that has but onely breath
To beg a wound; and strength, to crave a death:
O, that the pleased Heav'ns would once dissolve
These fleshly fetters, that so fast involve
My hampred soule; then should my soule be blest
From all these ills, and wrap her thougts in rest:
Till then, my dayes are moneths, my moneths are yeares;
My yeares are ages, to be spent in teares:
My Grief's entayl'd upom my wastfull breath,
Which no Recov'ry can cut off, but death;
Breath drawne in Cottages, pufft out in Thrones,
Begins, continues, and concludes in Grones.

INOCENT. de vilitate condit. humanae.

O who will give mine eyes a fountaine of teares, that I may bewaile the miserable ingresse of mans condition; the sinfull progresse of mans conversation, the damnable egresse in mans dissolution? I will consider with teares, whereof man was made, what man does, and what man is to do: Alas, he is formed of earth, conceived in sinne, borne to punishment; He does evill things, which are not lawfull; He does filthy things, which are not decent: He does vaine things, which are not expedient.

EPIGRAM 15.

[My heart, Thy life's a debt by Bond, which beares]

My heart, Thy life's a debt by Bond, which beares
A secret date; The use, is Grones and teares:
Plead not; Usurious Nature will have all,
As well the Int'rest, as the Principall.